Loup de la Mer
by Raouldehadleyfraser
Summary: D'Artagnan had always been different. He had known that as fact for a very young age - from the first time his mother had ever taken him to see the ocean. He had been five years old, and up until then, something had always been missing, like an extra sense, or a part of himself. He felt like he was missing a limb, and sometimes he woke up crying because the lack of whatever it was.


A/N: This was supposed to be for the Musketeers Big Bang, but since I didn't get it done in time, I'm just going to post what I have so far. Please enjoy

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Loup de la Mer

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**Prologue:**

D'Artagnan had always been different. He had known that as fact for a very young age - from the first time his mother had ever taken him to see the ocean. He had been five years old, and up until then, something had always been missing, like an extra sense, or a part of himself. He felt like he was missing a limb, and sometimes he woke up crying because the lack of whatever it was that he was missing was hurting him so much. Those were the nights on which his mother would sing to him, old songs, of home and somewhere far away, that she could not reach any more than he could. He would calm, then, and his father would watch them, frowning thoughtfully. That was because he didn't know, his mother had explained to him that day, and as long as they could help it, he would never know the truth about them - the truth about what they were.

His mother had begged his father to let her take him to visit her family, who had, according to the story she had so carefully spun for him, anyway, completely disowned her after she agreed to marry a farmer - never mind that he owned the land, he worked it himself, and would always be lesser in their eyes for it. It wasn't exactly a lie, she had explained later, just a truth stretched as far as it would go, pulled taut to the point of snapping, but Alexandre had never yanked hard enough at it to watch it fall apart, and in his lifetime, he never would. But he let her take Charles, little Charles d'Artagnan, already so tall for his age, he was going to surpass his father's height one day, but who had never once been to their home. She had denied him that right for half a decade, because she had foolishly believed that since he only half belonged to ocean, he would not feel the loss of it as keenly as she did. But he did feel it, and every time she held him close and whispered lullabies flavoured with the salt of a sea-breeze, she knew that he felt its lack as surely as a hole in the heart. She knew he had to change before he became sick and being away from the water killed him.

She had taken the old draft mare, Buttercup, and latched her up to a cart to make their journey easier, and every day they drew closer to the ocean. The journey took three days in total, and could have been less, if she had not the impetuous child constantly trying to escape and run back to their farm.

She sighed fondly, he was certainly his father's son in his sheer determination to reach his goals no matter what, even at the tender age of five. Though during the nights he had once again become lethargic and distant, and her lullabies only barely soothed his ache. Once the scent of the sea filled the air, though, there was a different story. His eyes brightened as he breathed in and tasted the salt on his tongue, the wind drafting it to him even as he was drawn towards the sand, and the sound of the swells crashing against the shore. She had to hold him back from jumping into the waves right then and there.

"Not yet, you must be patient, mon petit," she told him, smiling down at him gently, and radiantly, and she had her hair down, and Charles had never realised before now that it was so very long - or so very pretty, as the wind gently played with her curls. But the realisation didn't stop him from pouting. He wanted to play in the sea, like she always said they would in her stories. She just smiled again, and picked him up into her arms, depositing him on Buttercup's back. The old yellow mare, bless her, had a calm about her that could stop even Charles before he began a tantrum. He settled on her back and began braiding her mane, and looked up at his maman with questions dancing and swimming behind his wide, bright eyes. "Soon, mon petit", she soothes, cupping his face in her hand and brushing a thumb against his cheek. He was so small still, but he should have known who he was from birth. She should have given him that much. "We need to find somewhere that there are no people, so we can have all the fun we want, petit. Oui?"

"Oui, maman." He mumbled dutifully, though there was still a tone to it which told her he was still in a sulk.

"Now, now, mon cher, enough of that, now. Buttercup and I are going to find us a good spot to stop now." And they walked a little further, until they found a secluded cove - one that she knew well, because it was where she had first spotted that strange man who looked out to sea, as if he wished the sea to look back. After that, she had begged her family to let her go to shore. She and her mother had parted with some very choice words that still stung even now, but her father gave his blessing to go wherever her heart bid. Her brothers had thought she was insane, but other than that, were perfectly supportive. She could never let her family meet Charles though. Her father might be kind about it, but the fact would remain that he was still half-human, and the land still laid claim to him.

She tethered Buttercup securely and removed the cart from her back. She'd been wonderfully patient with them, after all, and deserved a break. Maria d'Artagnan picked her son back off of the back of the obliging animal, even though he had only gotten to plaiting half of her mane, and it looked something of a straw coloured mess, but that could be sorted out later, as Buttercup did not seem overly fussed by it. Charles tugged at his mother's hair, drawing her attention.

"Ma, mer, mer!" he protested loudly, and she had to laugh, and her gaze followed where he was pointing his chubby finger, out to the ocean. It was bluer than she remembered. In her memories it had somehow dimmed and greyed, but now that she saw it again, she could hardly help herself, she wanted to dive straight in and never return to land.

She had to restrain herself, and explain to Charles as best as she could what they were.

"That's right, petit. That's the sea, and for a long time, it was maman's home." She took a deep breath, and began her story, not sure how much her child would understand, but she needed to tell him this now, before they got in the water. "You, Charles, mon petit, are very special." He looked up at her with a sparkling grin, and she steeled herself to tell the rest. "And you need to promise me that you won't tell Papa anything that you learn today, Charles - can you do that?" She asked him, gently, but firmly. He bit his lip, and looked from the ocean to his mother, and nodded his head solemnly. "Alright, good, that's good, pet. Now, where to begin..." She cast about in her mind for a long moment, before she finally settled on one idea. "When you wake up crying, petit, why is it?" she asked him, and Charles frowned, wondering what Maman could possibly mean.

"Em...no not empty- but not...not full?" his face was scrunched up in confusion and determination to find the answer and Maria kissed him on the forehead.

"Oui, petit, and that's because there is something special about you. You were born for the ocean, and your heart sings for it." She held him tightly, even as he squirmed in her hold, frowning and grabbing at her hair again.

"So the sea will... fill me up?" he asked, trying to work through his mother's strange words. Maria let out an exasperated sigh - perhaps she would be better off just showing him after all.

"It will make you whole, mon petit." She set him down and walked towards the water. He followed her, but she stopped him before he was a few yards from the tide-mark. "You just sit there and watch Maman, alright?"

Once she was sure he had done as he was told, she walked out into the ocean. The thrill she felt when the first wave lapped at her feet and between her toes was like lightning, it came on so fast. She shuddered from it, a surprise, and far more intense after her long absence from the water. The real changes didn't begin until she had gone far enough in to sit in the water and let her skin absorb it. Her skin toughened and changed, and Charles watched in rapt wonder as what had been his mothers' legs slowly merged together and turned a greyish blue, and became a tail.

A tail. With fins.

His mother had a tail.

She was a mermaid, a sea siren like the sailor men sometimes whispered of.

But she still smiled at him with the same warm smile that made him safe and used the same mouth that sang him lullabies when it was dark and too dry and he was hurting, and all of a sudden he knew what she meant.

The ocean was their home.

And when she asked him to join her, he was only too eager.

She held him in her arms as he waited for his legs to change, too. He could feel it happening, but it was a bit slower than Maman's. It felt all funny and tingly and he tried to wriggle toes which he no longer possessed and everything was strange and new. She kept a good hold of him whilst he was getting used to his tail and his fins. She herself had never had to learn to swim, and if she had, she would have been newborn, and it would simply have been instinct, but all Charles had ever known were legs and land, so he needed time to get used to the water. And they had all the time in the world, so she let him. Eventually though, he was back to his old trick of trying to wriggle out of her arms, so she decided to let him go and see how well he did.

She was proud to see that he took to it - well, like a fish to water. His balance was a little off, at first, but that was only to be expected. Once he had a rhythm going, however, he was off like a shot into the deeper water, and she had to submerge herself and follow him to make sure he didn't stray too far. She glided along the sea floor, brushing her hand against the sandy bottom, marvelling in her form which she had so long ago forsaken - this was her ocean, she belonged and it was singing its siren song, and calling her never to leave again. Charles was a little way ahead, and had found a jellyfish, which he was understandably wary of, and backed away from quickly, turning back and swimming so fast that he didn't notice his mother was behind him until he head butted her in the middle of her chest.

Maman, he gurgled, and then he giggled, because the idea of speaking underwater was so novel to him. Maria smiled indulgently.

Yes, petit? She answered, wrapping her arms around him, and just enjoying being in the water with him, finally sharing her heritage with her son.

This was really fun. He told her, grinning from ear to ear.

Good, I'm glad, she replied, and kissed him on the cheek, which like any self-respecting little boy of five, Charles attempted to rub away any lasting mark the kiss might have made.

Can we go home to Papa now though? I'm sleepy. He told her, and that sent a cold shock through her. In all the time that they had been here, she had never once thought of her husband. She could so easily swim off into the deep with Charles and they would never go to the surface again. The ocean was so much a part of her that it almost killed her to part with it when she had only just found it again, but then she remembered that she loved her husband, and as much as she missed her home and her family, she could not tear the one she had made for herself apart by returning. She wasn't sure if she would be able to make the same choice if faced with that decision again.

So after that day, when they had gone back to Buttercup and the cart and dried up, and got their land-legs back, she made a pact with herself never to return to the ocean again, no matter how much it hurt. Her little Charles knew who he was now, and that would have to be enough for her.

D'Artagnan's mother was dead by the time he turned twelve. The adults told him it was because she was too weak after delivering his little sister, but he knew that the real reason was because she missed the sea. He didn't understand when he was younger that the day that she had shown him who he was, she had never wanted to leave the sea again. He learned, about a year later, however, when he begged to go to the beach and swim with her.

She looked so sad and she shouted at him and she locked him out of her room and cried until Father came home. Then, she just pretended that they hadn't argued and that everything was fine. He learned not to ask about the ocean again, though his toes itched and he wished so very hard to go back to sea and play with all the fish. But it was then that he had started to notice that Maman was getting sick. She looked too pale, and she was always tired, but Papa didn't notice until she was pregnant with little Marie, and then he thought that it was just a difficult pregnancy. He had no idea what it meant for her to be parted from the ocean, and if he had, Charles was very sure that even if it made Papa sad, Papa would have let her go back in and be free and healthy again, because Papa was a good man. But Charles was too little to do anything then, and Maman had made him promise not to tell Papa about that day, and he couldn't break a promise to Maman, that would be bad. And Charles was a good boy, and he didn't want his mother to be angry with him.

After his sister was born, he was ever so good with her, and held her and shushed her and sang her lullabies peppered with the salt of the ocean when Maman was too tired and laid in bed all day. He was nine years old then, and wise for his age, so he told her about the ocean, and the fish, and the eels and the rocks that were beneath the waves. He told her about how the water felt nice, and they could swim all day and never get tired. And one day, when they were all grown up, he was going to take her to a magical kingdom in the deep, deep, deepest part of the ocean, and they were going to go on so many adventures together. He was always careful not to let his Maman hear these stories, because he knew that they would only make her cry, because she still wouldn't let herself go back to the sea, and she had told Charles on the day Marie was born that it would be up to him to show her who she was, because Maman might not be there when Marie was old enough to understand.

Oh, she'd dressed it up to tell him that as a big brother, it was his responsibility, but he knew what she meant anyway. Just like he saw when she started coughing - Marie was two by then, and had already started walking. She could say "Chawooz", which Charles took to be baby-speak for his name. It was her first word, long before she ever said Maman or Papa. He wondered if he felt like he was growing up quicker than he should because he was part shark. Sharks grew up quicker than people, didn't they?

As soon as he had the thought, he felt the lack of his tail more keenly than he had in years, but he didn't say a word, he just sang songs to Marie and went to bed early that night. Mother hadn't even come down to dinner, and Papa had dark circles around his eyes and looked very, very old. Charles wanted to hug his Papa and tell him everything would be alright.

But the next week Maman's coughing got worse and when she pulled back the handkerchief there was blood.

The next few months consisted of watching her fade away in front of their eyes, and when she had strength to talk, all she would ever say was how much she missed the ocean, and why had they never gone for a swim. Charles put on a brave face for his Papa and little Marie, but he was scared - what was he going to do without Maman? Without the one person who knew him completely, and knew what he needed? He didn't want to be just a land person, but that was all he could be, without his Maman there to guide him. He didn't want to be alone. He wasn't meant to be alone. Their kind were meant to be in big groups, he knew that deep in his bones, in the tail and the fins that he still felt twitching even when he had legs. He had his father and his sister but somehow that didn't feel right to him, it wasn't enough. He needed something more.


End file.
